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Homeless shelter scares off Credit Union.

Article Excerpt
THE DEAL WAS PRETTY much done.

A roughly 10,000-SF building would have been built in downtown Little Rock on Chester Street about half a block north of Capitol Avenue to house TruService Federal Credit Union's new headquarters and, eventually, up to 50 employees.

Linda Jeffery, president and CEO of TruService, the state's 14th largest credit union (see List, Pages 21-22), had made an offer on the two lots, and owners Southwestern Hotels Inc. and Sissy Brandon had accepted.

Then Union Rescue Mission bought the four-story, 120,000-SF former Dillard's headquarters a half-block away at 900 W. Capitol Ave. and announced plans to relocate from North Little Rock its homeless shelter with more than 100 overnight beds -- a use allowable under the building's current zoning.

And the TruService deal was pretty much undone, despite the location's desirable proximity to Interstate 630 and busy arteries leading into downtown and to west Little Rock.

"We just basically let that offer die because, for us, we were looking for a home for our main office," Jeffery said. "The image we saw for the future made us sit back in light of what's going on [with the shelter]."

Union Rescue Mission backers, some of them prominent business executives themselves, insist the mission runs a tight ship and their residents don't contribute to crime, litter or negative images.

"If (the homeless are) on drugs or they're drunk, they can't stay at the shelter, and they know that," said Jerry Davis, president of Affiliated Foods Southwest Inc. and chairman of the Rescue Mission's board. "If they stay during the day, they're working for us, in treatment or working on something. They're kept busy."

But perception can become reality. And if downtown business leaders are right, other property sales will falter and...

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